Samsung Galaxy 3 Beats Apple IPhone To Best Smartphone Award

An employee shows an Apple's iPhone 4s (L) and a Samsung's Galaxy S3 (R) at a mobile phone shop in Seoul on August 27, 2012. Shares in Samsung Electronics opened 6.75 percent lower on August 27, 2012 after a US court fined the South Korean firm 1.05 billion USD for breaching Apple's patents. (Image credit: AFP/Getty Images via @daylife)

Samsungcontinued a great year last night by picking up the smartphone of year award at the 2013 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona beating off the challenge of Apple and its iPhone, HTC Droid DNA, Nokia Lumia 920, and Samsung Galaxy Note II. It was one of four major awards for Samsung, compared with none for Apple.

In the 2013 entry level/feature hone category Nokia's Asha won out over three other Nokia phones and the Samsung C3312. Google's Nexus 7 won the tablet race. You can see all the awards here.

For people interested in car sharing BMW Mini with partners Sixt and Vodafone, won the award for Best Mobile Product or Service for Automotive.

But it is the best smartphone award that carries most kudos. Samsung not only won that. They won best device manufacturer and best Best Mobile Enabled Consumer Electronics Device for the Galaxy camera, and Best Mobile Infrastructure for Smart LTE Networks (they also won the CTO Choice award for their LTE technology).

It rounds off a year in which Samsung has had to defend its reputation against copycat charges in the American courts. And it shows that outside of north America Samsung enjoys widespread admiration among its peers. It remains to be seen, however, whether the run will continue for Samsung with the S4, which seems to be hitting snags.